Koen felt terrible.

General Graa was loyal, generous and patient. And here Koen was, distracting Graa yet again while Mark and Laura took care of the pet they'd stolen from him.

It was getting easier to ignore the weight on his shoulder. Easier to imagine he was walking next to a friend.

Koen imagined a tall, broad-shouldered man, big in fact and even bigger in personal energy. He wouldn't have a bushy beard only because regulations forbid it. He would treat his horse with respect and discipline when in public. In private he would hug its great neck, bury his face in its mane and sigh.

"Are you sure you have enough time to go shopping with me," he tried again. "I'm sure you have work to do at your embassy, Your Excellency."

"There is no point in having subordinates if you can't delegate to them," said Graa. "You know that I am too upset to work."

"And as far as my brain knows, there is no more dangerous place for my body to be," said Fling. She was dressed in a new and differently-folded paper habit and hopped beside her jaguar.

Graa muttered on Koen's shoulder. "Somehow the most dangerous place always seems to be in my company." He raised his voice. "Either you are angling for advantage for your species…"

"Or you often get yourself into trouble," said Fling. "Remember the orbital ballet? I was sure you were going to order the destruction of the moons of Mars."

"They offended me." Graa fluffed his chest feathers. "I am merciful."

The weather had turned gray and chilly, but the meat market still bustled with bizarre activity. Extrusians sold "bush-worms by the bundle" and Sophronisters grinned bloodily behind their wares. A Quotidian advertised her fresh fish in pirate accents.

Koen had no idea when or how he would cook any of this stuff, but he had to do something. Keep Graa out of the Embassy while Mark and Laura figured out what to do with Mr. Grumbles. He tried to pretend things were normal and he didn't feel guilty.

One stall displayed large clay amphorae under a sign his translator told him said, "We are full of warm soup." Thinking hopefully of the Proprietress of Paps, Koen headed toward it. But no puppets dangled to greet him. There wasn't any activity at all on Koen's eye level.

When Koen looked down, however, three eyes stared back up at him. They were blue, diamond-shaped, and set in the gray, scaly hide of a trio of giant lizards.

Or, no. Koen noticed the ridges on their backs and their lack of ear-holes. These were sphenodonts.

On the humans' Earth, the only surviving sphenodont is the wrinkly, lizard-like tuatara of New Zealand. On another earth, Australia and Antarctica failed to separate, and some sphenodonts learned to keep each other warm.

When the bracken-taiga spread from the Weddel Sea to the Torres Gulf, scaled creatures crawled under the birds and marsupials, plotting. Their adaptation to the cold was simple: gregariousness. The sphenodonts huddled together on cold antarctic nights, maintaining enough heat in the centers of their colonies to dig for grubs and tubers. Their feeding sites attracted birds and mammals, which squatted over the reptiles and warmed them further. The retention of the parietal eye, with its lens, pupil, and connection to the pineal gland,1 allowed them to seek out the warmest belly overhead.

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Reptiles better able to politic themselves into the center of the huddle prospered, as did those who most effectively controlled their warm-blooded domesticates. Populations with more mobile tongue could both communicate and wield tools. Brains slowed in the cold, but sped up when warm, and empires clashed over the lush lands of the equator.

Now, the three Huddle looked up at Koen and his friends, covetous of their warmth.

The sphenodont in the middle stretched its neck slowly toward him, opening its mouth. Strings of saliva parted like curtains to reveal toothless gums2 and an enormous forked tongue. The tongue-tips rose, quivering.

"We will give you soup," spoke the translator, although the Huddle had made no sound. "In exchange."

"What kind of soup?" asked Graa.

"In exchange for what?" Koen want to know.

"Yes!" said Fling.

The central Huddle drummed his forefeet on the ground and wiggled his tongue some more. "You are mammals. We are sluggish. Embrace us and hold us. Warmth pays for warmth."

"The septal areas of my brain would be delighted,3" said Fling.

"I permit this," said Graa.

Koen asked for clarification. "You want us to hug you and heat you up?"

"Yes."

Fling tugged on the collar of her paper clothing. "Let's take our clothes off."

"Do I have — I mean, I'm not going to do that," said Koen.

The central Huddle flicked his tongue toward Fancy Death. "Why has he not consented?"

"Your body can try to hug him anyway," said Fling. "That would be interesting."

Koen stepped between the reptile and the jaguar. "He's her pet. And a predator."

"Don't be boring," said Fling. "Fancy Death, follow." She hopped to the Huddle and sat on one of them. Fancy Death nosed up to the next. He had eaten recently and was concerned with marking his territory and alleviating his boredom. He pressed his face against the chilly snout of the reptile. Once that was accomplished, he proceeded to scent-mark the rest of the scaly body.

"This is acceptable," said the Huddle.

"It's dangerous for your tongue to speak," said Fling from her position next to her cat. "Fancy Death's eyes and ears are locked onto its movement."

The third Huddle looked at Koen through the lidless eye on the top of her head. She didn't stick out her tongue to say anything, but she drummed her feet on the ground in a way that the translator rendered as "I'm waiting."

Koen, after some consideration, knelt down. He put his arms around the reptile's chest and lifted her by the armpits onto his lap. The Huddle clambered up him, badger-clawed forelimbs on his shoulder, broad head tucked under his chin, flabby belly pressed against his chest. She smelled like dirt and ammonia.

General Graa shifted on Koen's other shoulder. "Don't make me wait long. I expect a truly superlative soup, as well."

It turned out to be quite hot and somewhat cheesy in flavor. It was made mostly of fermented crickets.

1Schwab, I.R. et al. (March 2005). "The lonely eye". The British Journal of Ophthalmology. 89 (3): 256. doi:10.1136/bjo.2004.059105.

2A sign of venerable age

3Olds J, Milner P (1954). "Positive reinforcement produced by electrical stimulation of septal area and other regions of rat brain". Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology. 47 (6): 419–27. doi:10.1037/h0058775.